Ed,
What I like about Tot Hill won't be surprising; it is the same stuff as the other Strantz courses. Tremendous variety, the appearance of great difficulty off the tee but in fact very large landing areas, and wonderfully exciting greens.
I have always felt that Tot Hill suffers mainly by comparison to Tobacco Rd. The two courses are less that 60 miles apart, so they get mentioned together a lot, but the terrain couldn't be more different. Tobacco Rd. is in the Sandhills, and Strantz could do almost anything he wanted there in shaping the course. Tot Hill, on the other hand is in the middle of an ancient mountain range, and as such is rocky to excess. There are severe limitations to what can be done in the Asheboro area without blasting rock with nuclear weapons!
Is Tot Hill the equal of Tobacco Rd, or Caledonia/True Blue? Decidedly not, and golfers that go there expecting the same level of golf course WILL be disappointed. But Tot Hill is still a unique and highly artistic piece of GCA, and well worth the time to play.